


Six Times The Captain Protected His Crew, and One Time They Protected Him

by atomiccourier



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, New chapters should be published daily but no promises, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, did YOU know that thats nyoka's full name? I certainly didnt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-15 03:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21246818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomiccourier/pseuds/atomiccourier
Summary: Living in Halcyon means needing someone to watch your back, but that can make a person feel vulnerable.The trick is finding someone who deserves your trust, and then actually following through on trusting them.





	1. Ellie

**Author's Note:**

> This is something of an exercise in writing the companions. I find it hard to juggle multiple characters, but I want to try for these folks.
> 
> Big thanks to my fellow guildie Garack for beta-ing this monster.

Today, the motto seems to be "line em' up and knock em' down." The pair of them, Cap and her, have been culling the monsters outside of Fallbrook all day. She had woken up early, and found him nursing a coffee mug in the kitchen. When she'd expressed a desire to kill alien monsters, he'd jumped at the opportunity to join her.

She relished the freedom that came with being a part of this crew. They had landed in Fallbrook almost as soon as they’d finished getting their weapons and armor ready. The whole system at their fingertips; well, so long as they had the right navkeys.

And now, she had the execution of monsters down to a science. Being able to pick the right vantage point, prioritize each of them by importance, and rain bullet hellfire down upon them was excruciatingly satisfying. Sure, it wasn't the same pirate lifestyle she so yearned after, but her aim was certainly improving.

The sun was getting higher in the sky, and another mantis's head had just exploded, when she feels a heavy, squishy, weight upon her back, and spins around haphazardly. There are still mantises (manti?) to be dealt with in front of her. How had one flanked her so easily?

But it isn’t attacking her. The enormous larvae is already a corpse. In fact, there are a lot of monster corpses behind her, which she certainly hadn't killed. No, it was the Captain who had killed those ones. Had she forgotten he was even fighting with her?

"Sorry!" He yells from the perch he'd taken up a sniping position from. She shrugs the corpse off and gets back to murdering bugs.

When they're done, he jumps down to regroup with her, and she's shaking slime out of her hair.

"Sorry, sorry." He says again. "That one was a quick bugger. Didn't think it'd get to you so fast."

"Have you been murdering the bugs in my blind spots all morning?" She asks.

"Well, yeah." He replies, not unkindly. "You know I've always got your back, Ellie."

It's said so earnestly that she can't help but believe it, just a little bit. And the Captain hasn't failed her yet, so all he gets in reply is a disbelieving snort, as opposed to whatever worse response she might've given otherwise.

"Let's go get lunch." She says instead of a real response. "I've worked up an appetite."

He smiles, and allows her to lead the way back to the ship, hoping one day she'll feel safe enough to believe him.


	2. Felix

“Ack-” The sound caught in Felix’s throat as the box landed on his toes. Damn! He fell back on his ass, clutching the ends of his boots, massaging his toes through the leather.

“Fe _ lix _ .” The call comes from the Captain, who is further towards the ship, carrying a much bigger box with the help of SAM. “Be  _ careful _ .” He admonishes, in a warning tone, across the docking bay. Felix is none too pleased at this. He wasn’t part of this crew just to be looked down upon, or to carry crates of groceries! He huffs into his knee, before attempting to stand, checking to make sure the crate hadn’t broken open.

“You havin’ some trouble there, pal?” An unfamiliar voice calls to him. He looks over to a duo of folks standing in the shadows of the industrial cargo containers that have been left in the bay for as long as Felix can remember.

“I don’t _ need _ help.” He hisses back, leaning back down to try and get a better grip on the crate this time.

“You sure? That box looks light enough for a skinny Byzantian to carry.” 

Ohhhh. That does it. Felix rears back. “The hell do you know?! I could take a hundred Byzantians!”

“Woah, woah, hun. I’m just sayin’, you can’t be expected to outclass any of those rich fuckers if you’re eatin’ the same processed crap.”

Felix blinks. “What?” And slowly approaches the pair.

The first, the one who’d spoken to Felix, looks like an older woman. Greying hair beneath a shawl. Her partner is much less defined, preferring to sit back on a thick suitcase they must be taking with them. Must be waiting for a ride on some other ship.

“This whole system has been subsisting off of the same few brands, with the same terrible nutrition. Most people don’t even realize, ‘specially if they’ve lived here their whole lives. Unless you’re getting nutrition from other means, there’s no way you’ll outclass the elites.”

“Makes sense….” Felix replies slowly. He’s been to the secret labs outside of Roseway. He’s seen the fucked up sorts of chemicals that the corporations will put in food and other products. Even if he doesn’t understand the science, he knows it’s fucked up.

“So, my brother and I have come up with an ingenious solution, if I do say so myself. And you look like just the man who would appreciate such a thing. Use it to its fullest potential.” 

Felix’s ego has been stroked, so his “Oh?” is laden with interest. To be rid of the crap this system is putting in him would definitely help him take the whole thing down. He vaguely remembers Vic saying something about ‘peace within means peace without.’ Maybe the Vicar would be interested as well?

“We’ve created an infusion. Just a couple drops in every meal, and it will supply you with the boost of vitamins and minerals that the corporations have been withholding from you.” At this point, the brother stands and picks up the suitcase, opening it to show its contents to Felix. Inside are several neat rows of vials, held with felt to the lid of the case. The liquid inside glows bright blue, spreading its light inside this little shadow. Felix’s mouth is agape, and he’s almost about to ask the price for a vial, before a hand suddenly appears on his shoulder.

“Felix.” Says the Captain, with a slight urgency in his voice. “Need to get that crate inside. We’re about to take off.”

“But, Cap, these people--” He starts, as the Captain starts tugging him along by his sleeve.

“No time. ADA is getting antsy. Says she doesn’t want skrats to get in through the open door. And you know how hard it is to cure an infestation of those. We’ll never hear the last of it from her.”

“Pff, since when does ADA push you around?” He replies, already forgetting the duo in the imagery of an angry ADA.

“She’s the ship. She could jettison all of us into space if she ever wanted to. She can push me around all she wants.” He barely slows down for him to pick the crate back up. But then he’s following in the Captain’s footsteps as they march to ADA’s open door, and failing to notice the gaze that follows them from those shadows by the cargo containers.

When Felix places the last crate down among the others in the cargo bay, the Captain gives a sigh of relief, and speaks. “Sorry about that. We’re really in no rush. But I wanted to avoid an argument with those two.”

“Eh?” Felix spins around to look his Captain in the face. “You know those two, boss?”

“No.” He says, itching the back of his neck. “But I know their type. Snake oil sellers.”

“That was SNAKE oil?” Felix replies.

“Unlikely. But, I wouldn’t rule it out.” The Captain says. “That just means they sell a fake or harmful product to unsuspecting people. They’re usually very charismatic. Or else it wouldn’t work.”

“So, all that stuff about the corporations’ food products having no nutrition…?”

“Well, I wouldn't put it past the Board for that to be true. But chances are that whatever was in that suitcase wouldn’t help. It might’ve even poisoned you.”

Felix sighs, disbelieving. “Damn. And I almost fell for it.”

The Captain nods, but his expression is not unkind. “Those two were taking advantage of a distrust of the Board in order to sell their shit product. You’re definitely not the first they’ve tried that spiel on.” 

Felix sighs again, turning around, intending to head up to his bunk. But instead, he is stopped by the Captain’s hand on his shoulder again. “Felix, don’t feel bad. You’re right to be distrustful of the Board. They were wrong to try and use that against you. And besides, now you know what to look for when someone like that tries to take advantage of you, or anyone else.”

That gives Felix a smile. Of course the Captain would try to wrangle a good moral out of it. “Thanks, Boss.”

“No problem.” He replies, nodding and dropping his hand. His face shifts to a sly smirk. “Next time though, you’re helping me with the bigger crates.

“Hey!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Felix. We're the same in that we know shit's fucked in our society but are too dumb to know how to go about fixing it.
> 
> Happy Halloween!


	3. Nyoka

The first thing that she senses, upon waking up, is a gentle mechanical whirring. SAM must be trying to clean her room again. When she opens her eyes to tell him to fuck off until later, the light coming in through the door pierces her retinas, and makes her realize that A) she is on the floor, and B) she has a terrible hangover.

Trying to stand makes her dizzy, but she pushes herself up the wall anyway, because powering through it to get caffeine asap is preferable to just sitting there in her misery. She notices in the process that her shoes have been removed, and are placed neatly side-by-side next to her bunk. 

“Out of the way, SAM.” She whispers in a croak. The robot whirrs and silently shuffles over to give her room to pass. Strange. Either he’s finally realized that loud noise will make her pissed if she’s still hungover, or someone has disabled his voice module. (Or whatever it is that he uses to speak. She’s not an engineer.)

When she turns the corner and enter the kitchen, squinting against the light, the Captain is already there, leaning back against the counter, nursing a cup of coffee. He doesn’t say anything, but approaches her, and she looks down to see she’s being offered a freshly brewed cup of her own.

“Mm.” She hums, taking it and downing a few big, grateful gulps. Then she crosses to the dining table, and one of the chairs creaks when she sits down in it. There are various pamphlets and comic books and other light reading material scattered around on its surface, and she skims an advertisement for saltuna while the caffeine works its magic.

Once she feels suitably less hungover, she turns around to look at the Captain. He might be dozing off, where he leans on the edge of the counter. (Doesn’t she remember Max once said he’d seen the Captain pass out and stay standing?) His eyes are closed, and his head is tilting forward just enough…. But after a few moments, he jerks awake, blinks, and takes a sip of his own coffee.

“So how are _ you  _ doing, after last night?” She asks. The night before, the two of them had gone out to drink in Stellar Bay.

“Fine.” He says, into his mug. “Didn’t drink as much as you, either.”

“I thought you said you were gonna try to match me.”

“I did. And then I realized that one of us had to drag our asses back to the ship. And it wasn’t going to be you.”

“Hey, I could’ve found my way back to the ship just fine!”

“Could have. Didn’t want to. You were having too much fun recreating one of your many impressive feats with the buzzed audience at the bar.”

“Oh? Was I entertaining?”

“You built a rather impressive mountain of chairs in order to illustrate the size of your opponent…”

“Oh that’s normal.”

“...set the sprinklers off to imitate rain, and wrangled three other patrons with a lasso made of wires.  _ I _ was  _ thoroughly _ entertained.” He explained, matter-of-factly.

Nyoka snickers, and then grimaces. “We’re… not going to be allowed back there again… are we?”

“Oh, we will.” He replies. “I haggled with the manager for you. Paid our tab, and for the damages. So long as you allow the bartender to water down your drinks in the future, you’re in the clear.”

She’s in awe. She knows that that manager is especially strict. She’s impressed that Cap, especially a buzzed Cap, was able to wrangle that much of a compromise out of them.

“And then,” he continues. “I dragged you back home.”

“You-- ha! So all we gotta do now is wait for them to hire another bartender!”

He smirks back at her. “Exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel bad that I didn't do much to characterize Nyoka besides 'gets drunk' and 'tells stories about hunts.' When I write her again in the future, i'll do my best to expand further upon such a simplistic portrayal.


	4. Parvati

The metal part clatters onto the floor, and even the sound of it hitting the panel sounds broken, as the bend causes it to bounce in a strange way. The Captain clambers up out of the hole in the floor, pulling himself up with a grunt to sit on the edge, legs dangling down into the ship’s guts. Parvati follows, sitting beside him, and wiping a wrist across her forehead, smearing engine grease.

“So, we’re stuck here.” She states, dejectedly.

“For the time being.” He replies. “I’ll see about ordering a part. All the bureaucracy in Byzantium might make it take longer getting here, though.”

She lets out a dejected ‘pshoo’ of air, laying down on her back to look up at the ceiling.

“Also’ll have to see about an extended landing permit. I don’t want ta’ get the Unreliable towed anywhere.” He continues, then looks down at her.

“But, once I'm done with that, you wanna go window shopping?”

She sits up on her elbows, already eager. “Of  _ course! _ ”

It takes a little over an hour and a half to get the part ordered and the permit signed. (It would have taken longer if the Captain wasn’t so knowledgeable about how to jump the hurdles of Byzantian bureaucracy. Parvati didn’t understand it, but he knew just where to poke and prod to keep the paperwork light.) By then, she had cleaned herself mostly of grease, and so they both headed out into the shining high-rise city.

The shopping district that they found themselves in, whatever fancy name it had been assigned, was as gorgeous and pretentious as they had assumed. Through the glass windows they see such outrageous products as jewel encrusted toasters, gold-threaded curtains, porcelain teacup sets and bedside lamps, and silverware carved from primal bones. 

They take their time, at first. Weaving through the crowd to ogle at the lavish accessories that neither of them would ever own. As they pass the half-hour mark, though, the Captain appears to want to keep them moving. If she stalls at a window for too long, he points out another shop down the street that he wants to check out, or makes some dejected comment about the greed of the 1% being the only reason this stuff exists in the first place, as if to inspire her to move on.

It’s really starting to grate on her nerves, actually. What is the point of window shopping if you don’t spend at least two and a half minutes imagining yourself in a world where you could own these things? She’s never gotten angry at the Captain before, but she thinks she trusts him enough that the idea of openly criticizing him doesn’t make her imagine a future where he abandons her in Byzantine, with no way of getting home.

They’re standing in front of a store advertising several breeds of teacup canids, (They’re close enough to the real deal to set off Parvati’s fear reflex, but also puppy-ish enough to make her want to give them kisses) when she notices his face in the reflection of the glass. His eyes are not focused on the puppies, almost like he’s looking in the reflection at something else. She follows suit, and quickly catches sight of a trio of shady-looking UDL guardsmen. Quickly, Parvati realizes that at least one of them is currently having a staring match with the Captain via the reflection.

She immediately straightens up, takes him by the elbow, and marches off down the street, but not before taking a sharp turn to avoid another small crowd of higher-brows.

“Woah, woah, hey--” He starts, before she cuts him off.

“Why didn’t you just say we were being followed?” Her tone is unusually sharp. But when she looks back at him, her eyes are just questioning, not angry.

It takes him a second to respond. “You were enjoying yourself. I didn’t want to ruin this for you, just because some creeps were trailing us.”

Eventually they reach a corner, and she tugs him around before stopping, and turning to look at him proper. “Well, it means a lot to me that you want me to have a good time. But with something like this, think its better I know about it. Communication is key.”

His guilty look takes on a smile as she says that last phrase, because that’s something he’s said to her plenty of times.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” He replies, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

Parvati nods, proud of how well she has handled this confrontation. Then she poses a question. “So, what do we do now?”

“Hm.” He places a hand on his chin, to think with. “We really shouldn’t hang around. Even if we lost ’em, could run into ‘em again. And it’s getting to be about lunch time, so… back to the ship sound good?”

She nods again, suddenly realizing how hungry she’s become. “Sounds good to me, Captain.”

They smile at each other before turning down another street, back towards the loading zone. The Captain speaks up again. “Great. I could use a nap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy with this chapter. :)


	5. Max

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my good friend Mackie for beta-ing this chapter. <3

Max groans into his pillow. Even though there is no one in his room to hear him, it still makes him feel a little better to express his discontent to the universe.

He feels terrible. He’s not sure what the temperature is like, but he feels simultaneously blisteringly hot, and chillingly cold. His nose is stuffed to the point that it affects his speech, his throat is dry, and his head hurts.

He’s not sure how long he’s laid here in this hell, but when the seal on his door unlocks, he feels relief, if only for the fact that he now has someone to be bitter at.

Max turns over, and squints at the Captain. “Are you here to ask for my will?” He almost spits.

“Stop bein’ such a fuckin’ baby, Max.” The Captain retorts, approaching him. “You’ve caught the flu. I’ve told everyone besides SAM to spend the day in Fallbrook, so they won’t catch it from you.”

“I don’t see how you’re excused from the vulnerable parties in this.”

“I’ve been vaccinated.” He sits on his heels beside Max’s bunk, just out of coughing range. “It’s not for the same strain, most definitely, but if I do catch it from you, I won’t get the symptoms as bad, and it won’t last as long.”

Max grumbles.

“So for the time being, it’s my job to play doctor.” Max looks over again to confirm that he does indeed see a stethoscope hanging around the Captain’s neck, and a variety of medical tools sticking out of several of his pockets. He grumbles again.

“C’mon, turn over.”

“I thought you were convinced that this wouldn’t kill me. You were before.” Max says, as he does what is asked of him.

“Fairly convinced. Typically, the flu only kills young children, or the elderly, or people who are forced to work through it.” That last note has a hint of anger to it. “And because I’m confining you to the ship, and because I don’t believe you count as elderly, I have high hopes for your survival.”

Max huffs at the ‘don’t believe you count.’ He’s not _ old _, yet.

“But, it’d still be a good idea to stay on the lookout for the signs of something more deadly. Pneumonia, for example. Now, hold this under your tongue.”

Max blinks at the thermometer that has suddenly appeared in front of his face. The Captain blinks back. Max finally opens his mouth, and lays uncomfortably while the little machine determines his temperature.

“I don’t understand where the moniker Plague came from.” The Captain says, to fill the silence. “We’ve known about the Flu for centuries, and for most of that time have been able to survive it far more often than we die from it. Whereas plagues kill the majority of the time.”

The thermometer beeps, and the Captain removes it to see that it sits at an even 100.0°F.

“And, if I’m remembering from my time in medical school--”

“You went to _ medical school? _”

“It was a brief stint. Anyway, plagues were a lot uglier than the flu. There was no guessing whether or not you had something else. It was red splotches or boils everywhere, then death. Or, you got lucky.”

Max shudders. The Captain takes the stethoscope off from where it hangs, and puts it on properly.

“Sit up. I’m going to make sure you don’t have pneumonia.”

Max does as he is asked. “If this was so well known to people on Earth, then why didn’t that knowledge carry over when we began colonizing Halcyon?”

“Dunno. It’s not exactly advantageous for people to not understand the science behind a common illness, is it? But I suppose if people learn that the best treatment for an illness is bedrest, they’ll be less likely to work through something that they believe might kill them anyway, whether they work or not.”

“Hm.” 

“Now.” He places the little disk on Max’s back. “Breathe in as far as you can.”

And they go through the motions. Max breathes in and out. The Captain moves the disk. Max breathes in and out. While this happens, Max contemplates.

Before, everyone who Max had worked with restricted themselves from spending time to care for one another. Unpaid sick leave was enough of a deterrent for most people. Here, the Captain put aside what Max assumes to be his entire day just to make sure he’s okay. When the Captain talks about the failures of their system, it isn’t with the image that Max has always had of anti-capitalists, of the banging of one’s chest while chanting with a group of bedraggled unemployed anarchists armed with knives and spears. He speaks with an intelligence and a contemplativeness; one that makes sense to Max, in a way that might’ve once inspired the fear that he might be falling for some sort of brainwashing or propaganda.

The Captain’s assuredness at all of this reminds Max of his parents.

“Alright, everything sounds fine.” He stands back up, heading towards the door, stopping just before he breaches the threshold. “I’ll see if I can’t rummage up something to help your sore throat. Honey in tea does wonders, but I think I'll have to find a substitute for that.” Then he is gone.

Max thinks he rather likes being sick. If not because the Captain’s presence is comfortable, then because everyone else who would be bothering him is currently gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these next two chapters might actually take me a while. I haven't started on either of them, and trying to come up with a foil for SAM is a struggle. 
> 
> Also, I expect the final chapter to be the longest one.
> 
> Have a good night, folks <3


	6. SAM

“FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FU--” The Captain barrels through the door of the abandoned house, followed closely by Nyoka. They quickly take up positions on either side of the doorway, while acid sprays after them, coating the wall they had just been in front of, causing the wallpaper to melt, and the metal underneath to steam.

“What the FUCK is going on?!” Nyoka yells at him, over the electronic screeching.

“I don’t know! SAM had a few glitches in his speech this morning, but nothing like this!”

There is a crash from outside, and they both peek out through the doorway to see SAM landing on a pile of boxes, crushing them, before spraying acid towards another ruined house.

“What could have caused this shit?! Do robots just go insane?!” Nyoka whisper-yells at him, now that she is aware that drawing attention might cause them to be attacked.

“They shouldn’t. And I can’t imagine Hawthorne would’ve programmed this into him!” The Captain whisper-yells back. “Now, if this is something left over from his corporate programming, and if I stretch the logic a bit, I suppose--” He is cut off by the sound of mechanical steps approaching the door, and he and Nyoka skedaddle down the hall and up the steps, dodging another spray of acid.

“Can’t I just shoot him?! You can rebuild SAM, right?!” Nyoka quizzes him as they barrel out to the upper balcony and take up positions on either side of the door again.

“Maybe. But, if it’s a virus, if it’s malicious, then I want to be able to read the code. I might be able to tell who sent it.”

They are interrupted again as SAM barrels through the door after them, and the Captain takes the opportunity to plunge a knife into the cleaning robot’s back panel, wedging it open. Nyoka follows his lead and takes a tight grip on whatever handholds she can find on SAM’s back, to hold him in place while the Captain works. He gets a hand, and then another, into the hole he made, and pulls at it to widen it, peeking in at SAM’s innards.

“Oh my fucking god.”

He pulls his hands away, and a sprat jumps out of the hole. Then another. Then another. Then a couple baby sprats. He peeks in, reaches a hand in, and pulls out the smallest sprat Nyoka has ever seen, placing it on the floor near one particularly stunned sprat that hasn’t fled yet. The larger sprat picks it up by the scruff and runs off.

Nyoka grunts from overexertion and drops SAM on his front, placing her hands on her knees and pants like she’s run a marathon. “Are we good? Is that it?” She quizzes the Captain between breaths.

The Captain kneels by SAM’s shoulder. “SAM? You with us?”

“Did you know that SAM units are the longest lasting, toughest acting cleaning solution in Halcyon?” SAM responds.

The Captain laughs, and collapses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's so short. Next one will be longer! But also it might take more than a day. But I promise it'll be worth it!
> 
> Maybe I've made it a little too obvious what the Captain's issue is. But I hope the chapter will be entertaining whether its a surprise or not.


	7. The Captain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS FINALLY DONE.

Parvati crawls out from under another second hand piece of machinery that the Unreliable houses in its bowls, and joins the Captain where he sits cross-legged on the metal floor beside her toolbox.

“How’s it looking, Captain?”

“Mm. Not as many prospective upgrades as I would’ve liked. The space down here is already so full. Filling in the crawlspace is a no, because we need to be able to access all of it.”

“So what can we do?”

“We can overclock the boiler. Hotter showers, if that’s your thing.”

She tilts her head, makes an ‘ehhh’ face.

“Other than that, I’m not sure. I’ll keep looking.”

“You still need me here then?”

“Not at the moment. Thanks, Parvati.”

She turns to wiggle her way back up through to the cargo room when she catches him yawning again out of the corner of her eye. She can tell he’s been suppressing it whenever she’s looking right at him. Even in the darkness of the Unreliable’s underbelly, she can pick out the dark circles under his eyes.

“Hey, Captain. You know, if you need my help with anything else--”

“I know, Parvati. I always appreciate your assistance.”

She knows it’s true. But she also knows he brushes her off every time he perceives the conversation as nearing the topic of his tiredness. He appreciates her help, but he does not want to admit that he has a problem.

She doesn’t even know what that problem is, she realizes as she pulls herself up into the cargo room. But, maybe someone else does.

When she wanders up to the dining room, she’s surprised to see it’s full of people. Everyone but SAM, who she saw dusting in ADA’s room. She then realizes it’s lunch time.

“Hey, Parvati!” Nyoka calls out to her. “Y’want some pancakes?”

Nyoka, being a lover of breakfast foods at any time of day or night, has made too many, and is pawning them off on anyone that will take them. Which, right now, is everyone except the Vicar, who is reading a several-days-old newspaper with some toast on his plate. She says yes, and thanks Nyoka when she sets a warm plate down at her usual spot across from Felix, who has probably the tallest pile of pancakes she’s ever seen on his plate. He is inhaling them like he hasn’t eaten in a year.

Parvati is much slower going, picking at her short stack with her fork, still worrying about the Captain’s health.

“Mf, You’ll wam fourup wif vat.” Ellie says through a mouthful, pointing at the syrup bottle sitting in the middle of the table. Parvati nods and reaches for it while the Vicar tells Ellie, likely for the third time this meal, to please not speak with her mouth full.

She pours a puddle of syrup onto the side of her plate and drags her fork through it. It’s a bit sweet for her tastes, but supposes the blandness of pancakes without it would be worse.

“Is everything alright, Ms. Holcomb?” The Vicar questions her from the end of the table, apparently having put his paper down for long enough to notice her. She decides to swallow her mouthful before speaking up.

“Do you guys think the Captain has been sleeping enough?”

“Absolutely not.” Max replies. Nyoka shakes her head with a noise of negativity, as does Ellie. Felix makes a noise from behind the stack of pancakes that she assumes means he has no idea what any of them are talking about.

“He retires to his room later than the rest of us, is awake before the rest of us, and I have frequently heard him wandering down the hall to the kitchen in the middle of the night.” Max says.

“Hey, I go for midnight snacks too sometimes!” Felix replies in the Captain’s defence. It’s Nyoka who responds.

“No, he goes for coffee. I get up and find he’s made another couple mugs worth some mornings. He’s using up all of our caffinoid.”

Max makes a noise of concession, and goes back to stuffing his mouth full of pancakes, albeit slower this time, presumably so he can listen to the conversation.

“I’m worried.” Parvati says. “He looks tired. He acts tired.”

“For someone so adamant about the importance of rest as a rejection of capitalism,” Ellie chimes in, “he sure doesn’t uphold that when it comes to sleep.”

“The Captain sleeps.” They all jump a little, as ADA chimes in through the speakers in the ceiling. They can tell, from the way her voice does not echo from down the hall, that she is speaking only to the kitchen, and not the whole ship. “However, approximately ninety percent of all nights, I am able to pick up minor vocalizations from the Captain’s quarters, such as whimpering. Seventy percent of the Captain’s sleep sessions are interrupted by one or more sudden awakenings.”

They all look at each other, unsure of who is going to be the first to state the obvious. That the Captain has abnormally frequent nightmares.

Ellie is the first to speak up, dropping her fork on her plate with a clatter. “Alright. I’m a surgeon, not a psychiatrist. How do people deal with nightmares?”

Nyoka bites her lip, Max hides behind his paper, Felix crams more pancakes into his mouth. Parvati then responds.

“Well, when I was real little--” She starts, softly. “--N’ had had a bad dream, my dad would stick by my bed, tell me reassuring things, that he loved me, n’ such, and he’d stay until I fell asleep again.”

Ellie, apparently taking initiative on planning this intervention, pulls out a pen and starts marking ideas down on a napkin. “If one of us has to have a sleepover with the Captain, it won’t be me.”

No one has anything to say against that, so she taps her pen on the table and looks around. “Anybody else?”

It’s Nyoka who spoke next. “Mm. Sometimes, after we lost Hayes, Opal, and Clara, I’d get nightmares about them. It helped to get up and take a walk around town. Remind myself that there’s still people in those houses. A community that cared about me, in some way.”

Ellie turns back to write that down.

“And if the bar were open, I’d go get something to drink.”

Max responds to that. “I think it would be a good idea to guide the Captain away from a dependence on alcohol, if we can, Nyoka.”

“What about you, Felix?” Parvati asks, as she realizes she can finally see him over the top of the pancake stack. “You ever have any bad dreams?”

Felix makes an evasive noise, and swallows. “Guess so. Like, teeth falling out, running from something but gravity’s not pushing you down enough, giant crabs.”

“Giant crabs? You’ve seen a crab?”

“Must’ve, if i’m having dreams about ‘em.”

“Was he wearing loafers?” Ellie chimes in, clearly amused.

Max sighs, and puts his paper down abruptly. “Here’s an idea. These bunks are horrifically cramped and uncomfortable. We get him a mattress.”

“I don’t even think the Captain’s quarters are big enough to fit a full mattress, Vicky.” Ellie chides. 

“It doesn’t have to be in the Captain’s quarters.” Parvati says. “We could put it in the cargo room, back by the heater, where it’s warm.”

“But if one of us comes in there in the mornings, we’ll wake him up. N’I don’t think you’d want to delay your mechanic business to avoid that.” Nyoka responds. Parvati nods, unconvinced that the idea has no merit.

“Y’know, we don’t even know why the Cap’s having nightmares.” Ellie says, sitting back in her chair.

“I doubt he’d tell us.” Adds Max. “I’ve attempted to wrangle personal information out of him numerous times. He is incredibly adept at dodging questions.”

“What do you know?” Asks Nyoka.

“He had a brief stint in medical school. Whatever that means. Phineas Welles once called him a fellow scientist, as well. Beyond that, nothing I can be sure of. Anything we’ve overheard while on excursions with him could just be lies. I’ve certainly noticed details not adding up.”

“So we have no idea if any of these ideas will work.” Ellie says, matter-of-factly. 

“We have no idea if he’ll let us cajole him into playing along either.” Adds Nyoka.

“Assume he does allow us.” Says Max. “We should cast as wide a net as possible. Use as many tactics at once. Then we’ll be more likely to succeed. Something has to work.”

“Whabab—” Felix starts speaking, then swallows the food still in his mouth, then starts again. “What about a sleepover?”

They all look at him. Max raises an eyebrow. Nyoka tilts her head. Ellie blinks.

Parvati’s eyes sparkle. “Ohhhhh, I’ve heard of those! It’s when a bunch of people get as many blankets and pillows and soft things to sleep on, all together in the same room! My dad told me about one he got to go to as a tyke.” She sighs, clicks her tongue against her teeth. “It always sounded so fun.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got to go to a couple with a bunch of the other kids I’d hang with.” Felix replies. “We’d stay up as late as we could watching old tossball recordings, bingeing on whatever candy we could get our hands on.”

The rest of the group sits for a moment to imagine what that would be like, before Nyoka speaks up. “That would cast a wide net of solutions. Get our hands on a mattress or two, whatever blankets we can scrounge up, put em all in the cargo room. Then we can keep an eye on him, be there for him, and keep him from escaping up here to raid the caffinoid.”

“It might not be a permanent solution.” Max says, while Ellie starts scribbling down the beginnings of a shopping list on the other side of the napkin. “But, at the very least, its a strong start.”

* * *

They spend the rest of that lunch hour divvying up responsibilities between the five of them. Tomorrow is when the plan will take form. It’s Ellie’s job to distract the Captain for the day, convincing him to land in Monarch, and go with her to catch up with some of her old acquaintances in the city, see how many of them they can piss off. Parvati and Felix are to scrounge up as many soft, colorful blankets and pillows as they can find. Nyoka is on dinner detail. Max’s job is to try and track down a proper mattress or two. He brought SAM with him, to help carry them back.

For Parvati and Felix, the real trouble is finding a shop that sells within their budget. They end up walking away from several perfectly good stores because the prices are just too outrageous. After several fruitless hours, they end up wandering into a sewing shop, and explaining to the seamstress their need. Felix is in awe of the variety of bright colors in rolls of fabric up and down the walls, and Parvati oohs and aahs over the delicate construction of the sewing machines. Something about them must charm the elderly woman, and she has her fastest machine construct a generous number of pillows and blankets for them. Bright reds, gentle yellows, and smart greens, bundled into several shopping bags, for a reasonable price. They thank her profusely as they exit, before bolting down the street with childish laughter. Noon has passed, and they hope they can get home before the Captain, and Ellie.

Normally, Nyoka would have raided the nearest vending machines, and been done with her task. But something about that seems wrong, boring, lazy. So she does her best to navigate the city, and find some place that sells food that doesn't come out of a slot. It quickly becomes clear that, for all of her experience navigating the rolling hills of Monarch, the city is incredibly easy to become lost in. Every street corner looks the same, every building doing its best to fit itself to the strict status quo, and only varying from its neighbors in the most limited of ways. She ends up having to ask several Byzantians for directions.

One young couple she stops end up gushing about their favorite restaurants, and she successfully gets the address of a place that they describe as spacer-chic. Sure enough, she finds it tucked into a corner under a bridge. It looks like some sort of diner, like that someone might find on the groundbreaker, metal plating and all. The smell inside is greasy, but pleasantly so. The menu is surprisingly Earth-esque, and she wonders how many ingredients have been substituted for their originals. The orders three "Pizzas," which the chef recommends. She doubts that the pepperoni and cheese ones actually have pepperoni and cheese on them.

Max perhaps has the most trouble of all. The number of mattress stores in the area is naturally low. He must suffer the feeling of being spoken down to by everyone he stops to ask for directions. And when he gets there, he struggles to comprehend the wealth disparity between the quality of the beds he sees, and those he has slept on throughout his life. It makes him angry. And he struggles to hold down an outburst as he explains to the employee that he would just like to see their cheapest ones. No he does not want them to be stuffed with sponges, or to vibrate, or to do any sort of unusual thing. He just. Wants. To get through. This day. For the Captain's sake. 

Eventually the pair walks away with a pair of the cheapest ones the store had in stock. They’re twice the height, width, and thickness of the mattresses back at the Unreliable. Halfway back, he comes to a realization, and makes a brief stop to purchase a set of linens for them.

“Is that Maaaaaax?” Nyoka calls out as Max opens the Unreliable’s door, voice echoing from the cargo room.

“Yes.” he calls back, and she jogs through the door to greet them. “Can I assume the Captain isn’t back yet?”

“Nope. These look perfect.” She says in regards to the mattresses. “I also pulled out my sleeping bags. So we’ll have plenty of room, if no one wants to head back to their bunk to conk out.”

Max smirks warmly at her phrasing, and does his best to help her squeeze them through the door. Felix comes down soon after, having cordoned himself off to his room to keep from stealing a slice of pizza, since they just smell so darn good. Together the three of them position the beds, put the linens on, and throw out the blankets and pillows so they are appropriately messy, yet artful.

“Where’s Mrs. Holcomb run off to?” Max asks, while they judge their work. Felix answers, kneeling on a mattress. “She thought of something else she thought we needed, so she ran off…. ‘Bout an hour ago? Yeah.”

“Mn. Hope she gets back soon.” Max responds. His sentence is punctuated by the sound of the front door unsealing itself. The three of them turn towards the door, and their anxieties are justified when the sound of the Captain and Ellie joshing with each other reaches them.

“Oh my god the look on his face!” The Captain laughs, passing by the door with Ellie close behind. He almost makes it to the steps before he can be seen backing up, looking through the doorway of the cargo room. “Oh? What’s going on in here?”

“Mandatory team building exercise.” Nyoka replies, hands on her hips. “No backing out, Cap.”

“Why would I back out? I dunno what this team building even entails. ‘Cept that it smells like…. Pizza.” 

He beelines over to the workbench where Nyoka has balanced the boxes, pulling up the lids to gaze at the contents of each box. “They smell just like the real thing. I can’t believe y’all haven’t dug in already.”

“It’s been a challenge to hold ourselves back, I can assure you.” Max responds. When the Captain delicately selects a slice of pepperoni, the rest of them take it as an invitation to grab slices of their own. 

“You guys really went to town on the decoration.” Ellie says, looking over the reds and yellows and greens of the fabric strewn across the beds.

“Yah—” The Captain says around a slice before swallowing. “This isn’t, like, a setup for a— for something kinky, is it?”

Max nearly spits out his slice, Felix’s eyes nearly pop out of his head, Ellie and Nyoka both let loose short chirps of laughter.

“No, Law no!” Max responds hurriedly. Felix decides not to bring up the possibility of Twister.

The Captain starts laughing at their reactions. A light, bouncing thing that sounds more real than any laugh they’ve heard from him yet.

They’re interrupted by a soft voice from the corridor. “Sorry I’m late.” Parvati says over a shopping bag clutched to her chest. She enters, unable to suppress an excited hop in her step. “I just saw a store earlier and had to go back and grab something. Five somethings.” When she reaches the mattresses, she upends the bag and dumps out a small collection of hand-stitched stuffed animals. They have button eyes, and cutesy proportions. There are two sprats, a canid, a cystipig, and a pteroray. 

“Oohhhhhhh these are adorableeeeee~” Nyoka swoons, swooping up one of the sprats and looking it in the face. “Makes you forget just how ugly the real ones are!”

“I can’t believe these are so accurate.” The Captain remarks, picking up the pteroray in one hand, and examining the details of its face and wings. “Didn’t think anyone in monarch woulda seen a monster first-hand, but these’re clearly based on first-hand knowledge.”

They take a few minutes to examine the plushies, during which Max convinces everyone to de-shoe, since they should avoid sullying the sheets as much as possible. It ends when Felix gets up to pull out a deck of cards.

They spend the evening sitting cross-legged on the mattresses, eating pizza, drinking soda, playing aggressive games of go fish, old maid, and crazy eights, and trading funny stories. Felix talks about a time he’d hung a particularly assholish guard’s underwear above the entrance from the Groundbreaker’s docks. Max shares the story of a cafeteria-wide food fight he’d accidentally instigated while working in prison. Parvati talks about how, once during her schooling, her class had conspired to prank the horrible teacher that plagued them. Ellie shares a memory of her teens when she’d ruined a stuffy party her parents were hosting by spiking the punch. Nyoka gives a retelling of a time she’d had to deal with a drunken Hiram who had been snoring over the airwaves for several hours.

Yet, they do not successfully get a story out of the Captain.

As the night goes on, they come to an agreement that no one actually has to sleep in the cargo room. And as each of them individually gets up to go get ready for bed, the rest of them are left wondering whether or not the crewmate in question will return.

And, one by one, every one of them returns. Until only the Captain is left in his day clothes.

By then, the atmosphere has wound down. Nyoka has already taken the far side of one mattress, dozing under a green blanket. ADA has dimmed the lights significantly. Max yawns. Felix yawns. Ellie yawns. 

“Huh. Alright.” The Captain huffs slightly as he stands, stretching his knees for the first time in over an hour. “My turn now.” They watch as he exits towards the stairs, watch as the plush pteroray swings from his left hand.

Max worries. He worries that the Captain will not return. He worries that all of their efforts, and bits, will go to waste. They cannot make him come back downstairs. They can only hope he will either not realize the game being played, or that he will allow them their move.

Minutes pass. Ellie takes one of the sleeping bags. Felix takes the other. Parvati strategically takes the other farthest mattress side. Now, Max thinks as he takes the space next to Nyoka, the Captain will need to take the centre spot, where he will not so easily be able to slip away.

That is, if he returns.

Minutes pass.

The sound of bare feet descends the stairs outside, and they all sigh in relief. Max worries for a moment that the Captain heard them, but he enters through the doorframe uneventfully. His pj’s are perhaps the filthiest out of all of theirs; a grease-stained t-shirt with a logo Max doesn’t recognize, and a pair of sweatpants that are clearly hand-me-downs, being too big, and years old.

They all pretend to either be dozing, or looking off into space, but they all pay attention as the Captain pads across the room. He yawns into his right hand, still clutching the pteroray in the other, and climbs uneventfully into the only remaining spot left, on the mattress Parvati has taken, between her and Max. He lays on his stomach, buries his face in a plump red pillow, and breathes out, breath quickly slowing to the rate of sleep.

Max isn’t sure when he wakes up, or even when he drifted off. But he knows why he woke up. The Captain is jerking in his sleep. The sounds he is making could easily be passed off as hiccups, but they’re more intense; happening every second, and causing full body shudders. 

Max sits up halfway, willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The Captain isn’t choking, is he? Despite how panicked he is, he still can’t get his sleep-addled brain to make sense of the danger.

Over the Captain’s back he spies Parvati, who is currently just as awake as he is, looking at the Captain with equal panic. Max and her lock gazes for a moment, while the Captain convulses between them.

She is the first to act, taking a hand and splaying it across the Captain’s upper back. Not pushing him down, just there.

“Shhhhh.” She whispers, rubbing her hand in slow circles across his shoulder blades. His next hiccup seems to catch on itself, but he fails to wake from whatever plagues him.

After a brief pause, Max follows her lead. He reaches out across the small gap between mattresses, and places his hand along the Captain’s spine, He rubs slowly back and forth across the fabric of his shirt. Max almost feels sick, as the vibrations of the Captain’s hiccups ricochet up his arm. Something about this, his Captain being plagued by something unknown and visceral, in the darkness of a sleeping ship, makes him feel helpless and lost.

But, to the relief of everyone in the room whom the Captain’s spasms woke, the convulsions slow over the next few minutes. Until the last jerk has plagued him, and he sinks with a whimper and a shudder into the mattress.

Max lays back down, but keeps his hand on the Captain’s back, as Parvati does. At some point he drifts off to sleep, and at some point he is awakened again by the Captain’s convulsions. Three times in the night, their simple expressions of care pull the Captain from his nightmares. Max does not know how many times the weight of their hands have kept the Captain from escaping upstairs to the kitchen. But he is still there when the lights begin to brighten again.

One by one, they wake, and stretch, and make their way up to the kitchen for breakfast. Max is the last to leave, after Parvati, who exchanges a knowing glance with him as she gets up to pursue the smell of bacon that wafts lazily down the stairs. When he leaves, the Captain still sleeps, but the dark circles under his eyes have lessened, and his breathing is even and easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to my friends Garack and Mackie for being my beta readers!
> 
> It'll likely be a while until my next fic. I want to play again, to get a refresher on the feel of the world and character. (It will probably be a shipping fic. You'll never guess who with.)
> 
> Also, if anyone wants to take this idea of the sleepover and turn it into something kinky, you have my blessing as long as its consensual. may I suggest strip poker?


End file.
